Why Should Ye Be Stricken Anymore?

Why should ye be stricken anymore

With wound and bruise and putrefying sore?

Close them up and mollify with oil.

Close them up and mollify with oil.

Into your ill this ointment will I pour.

You land is bare and cities burned with fire.

Desolation made your lodge a mire.

Wash you, make you clean, and evil cease.

Wash you, make you clean, and evil cease.

Learn, do well, relieve oppression’s ire.

I will take thy tin and purge thy dross.

Zion, nigh redeemed, shall e’er the loss

Smite and all transgression full consume,

Smite and all transgression full consume,

Burning with the spark the quench of frost.

Come now, let’s together make aright,

Refusing darkness, love embracing light.

Though your sins be scarlet, crimson red,

Though your sins be scarlet, crimson red,

They shall be as wool and snow of white.

My favorite scripture for a long time has been Isaiah 1:18. Its message communicates the blessing every person wants at some point in his life—the blessing of total redemption from sin and guilt. This message and the eloquence of “Oh Say, What Is Truth?” prompted me to go ahead and finally give this a try. I hope that one day this will be set to music as a choral piece.

I wrote this on Sunday, November 29. I think I did an okay job of paying attention during sacrament meeting, but I know I missed a lot of things because I was writing. I flipped through Isaiah 1, wrote a few words or lines, listened to the speaker, and then went back to Isaiah 1, the process repeating itself over and over again. When the meeting concluded, I finished the poem.

For reference, the following verses contributed to the following stanzas:

1^st Stanza: 5-6

2^nd Stanza: 7-8, 16-17

3^rd Stanza: 25, 27-28, 31

4^th Stanza: 18, 20

God Speaks Through Prophets Today

I haven’t written any posts in a while, partly because I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this blog. Sometimes it feels too difficult to make posts that people will care about reading. While finding my way in the blogging world, I did conclude that adventure poems are probably not the way to go, at least for this blog. Instead, I think I’ll try focusing primarily on more religious things. I guess we’ll see.

I have thought this evening about a passage from Amos 3:7:

Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

I have heard mainly two interpretations of this verse. One of them is that the Lord will always speak through a prophet if He is going to do anything among us. That is what I believe Amos was saying.

God does speak through His prophets. And He has only left His children without a prophet during times of great wickedness, when the majority of the people apostatize from the right way and reject Him. Peter reminded us, in Acts 10:43:

To him [Christ] give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.

How grateful I am to live in a day when there are prophets on the earth. Many people don’t believe there is a prophet through whom the Lord speaks today, but I do. His name is Thomas S. Monson.

President Monson

At a conference two months ago, he said:

I bear my testimony to you that this work is true, that our Savior lives, and that He guides and directs His Church here upon the earth. I leave with you my witness and my testimony that God our Eternal Father lives and loves us. He is indeed our Father, and He is personal and real.

The Moral of the Story, Part 2

“Why thank you, friend, you’re awful kind,” the antelope replies,

Smiling a normal smile, while eyeing with three eyes

Your house interior and property, of which eyeing you take note,

And say, “I think you’ve come for something else, O antelope–

Something more than my first aid, of which I’ll happily give,

If you will explain how in the world it’s in this world you live.”

“It’s true, I’m from another world,” the antelope does say,

“My name is Fred and I did hear you’d help me out today.

You see, my home has been invaded by aliens galore.

My people are all but extinct, and I have to your door

Come to ask assistance of you and your family,

Assistance to retaliate and set my people free.”

Pondering on this request, you gather all he said,

Read Part 1.

Choose Your Own Adventure?

I started a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure poem a few weeks ago, but I don’t know if it really fits in with this blog. (It can be found here.)

What do you think?

Life Lesson: Be the Unexpected

During my freshman year of high school, I learned an important lesson: be different. Mrs. Kehler, the drama teacher, had us get in groups and prepare our own stage adaptation of a children’s book. A few of my fellow freshmen and I got together and talked about our story, the story of a potato farmer and a king…and stuff. While I don’t recall any specific wording in our conversation, this is basically what happened:

Friend: We should do something totally different from the rest of the class.

Me: No, guys, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Friend: Why? We should do something she won’t expect.

Me: Like what?

Friend: Like…the king should be Mexican. [etc.]

Me: I don’t know, guys. I think we should play it safe.

Fortunately we didn’t play it safe. Our king was Mexican, we altered all the wording in the story, and our adaptation became a comedy. And you know what? Our teacher loved it. She loved that we thought outside the box and did something daring. And she thought it was hilarious.

I read in my journal from my junior year last night and found this excerpt:

I wrote a compare and contrast essay in English class this past week sometime. I couldn’t decide what to write about, so I asked McKay. He threw out some ideas, but none were very good until he suggested I compare my feet to Mr. Menendian’s feet. So, I did. I explained in the essay how my feet were extremely useful to me and how Mr. Menendian’s feet were of no use.

I remember getting a good grade on that essay. It’s been good to learn and relearn this important lesson throughout my life. I’ve found that being the unexpected has really paid off.

“Why Do People Break Covenants?”

After Karen ended a conversation with a friend about a month ago, she turned to me and asked, “Why do people break covenants?”

In other words, why do people choose to leave the Church or destroy their marriages or any number of things? I thought about it for a while after she asked me, and I’ve thought about it several times since then. My response the first time was something like, “I suppose people break their covenants because their priorities start to shift over time and they end up valuing some sin more than the commitments they’ve made.”

I read this morning from Elder Richard G. Scott’s recent conference address, and Karen’s question came to my mind again. He said:

An individual with foundation standards and an enduring commitment to obey them is not easily led astray. Someone who is increasingly repulsed by grievous sin and who exercises self-restraint outside human influence has character.

I feel like foundation and enduring are two words that hit the target. When we get out of practice and let our daily scripture study, daily prayer, Family Home Evening, church attendance, temple attendance, and other important things slip out of our lives, we replace them with other things. It’s natural. When you stop doing one thing, the hours in the day don’t change, but you do! Fortunately, Elder Scott spoke of ‘mending’ our covenants, so to speak:

A feeling of remorse after a mistake is a fertile soil wherein repentance can flower.

What do you think of Karen’s question?

Not “Till Death Do You Part”

Karen and I were married in the Fresno California Temple a little over six months ago.

Fresno Temple

I know people of other faiths who believe they will be with their spouses after death. Where does this doctrine come from? My understanding is that it is not taught in their churches. But it is a true doctrine, under the proper circumstances:

D&C 132:19 . . . I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood . . . then shall it be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life . . . and shall be of full force when they are out of the world . . . .

It is a natural thing to want to be with each other after death, but that’s not what most civil ceremonies will tell you is possible. “Till death do you part,” is the phrase we hear, but what do we feel? In a civil ceremony, the blessing of being married is conditional upon staying alive.

Done without priesthood authority, however, the ‘conditions’ are different:

D&C 132:15 . . . [I]f a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, . . . their covenant and marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world . . . .

I feel so grateful that the priesthood has been restored in our day through the prophet Joseph Smith. I can be with Karen for time and eternity if I live righteously, and the same can be said of others, but only through the sealing power. This is something to be grateful for–that there is order in God’s kingdom and that He loves us enough to allow us to live as families beyond death. It is this same power that Peter received from the Savior roughly 2000 years ago:

Matthew 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Forever

 

What I Do For A Living

Top: Elders Parkhurst, Jackson, Schwantes, Plunkett, and Monterroso / Bottom: Elders Dale, Christensen, Fernelius, and Smith, with me on the end

I teach missionaries five days a week. They stay for three weeks at a time and then go to various parts of the world. Since I recently moved classrooms, I taught these missionaries for two days, but we formed a good bond.

Top: Me and Elders Dorey, Sneary, and Petersen / Bottom: Sister Power, Elder Bryan, Sisters Duffy and Young, and Elder Tikalsky

But this group is the one I taught before moving classrooms. They leave soon. And this was Argyle day. (Missionaries make their own special holidays sometimes.)

A Break

I teach missionaries, and sometimes we take breaks to get a drink of water and stuff.

My Shoes

And this is me playing with the camera in that very hallway.

I love my job.

A New Thanksgiving Hymn

I talked with Matt a few days ago about some things and writing a Thanksgiving hymn came up. We have written a Thanksgiving hymn together every year for the past two years (great accomplishment, huh?) and we want to get another one down for 2009. Sunday, after church, I sat down and punched out after about an hour what I think I will make for a good hymn, but I’m waiting to see what Matt thinks of the meter and hymn-related possibilities. Let me know what you think! (And please forgive me if the spacing is weird.)

Supplication yields what mercy

God our Father would bestow.

Now let us exalt Him ever

With our thanks from here below.

 

CHORUS

Praise the Lord, O praise the Lord, O

Praise the Lord our God!

 

Can we be at all ungrateful

When abundance is our lot?

Rather than a muttered murmur,

Let’s express a thankful thought.

 

CHORUS

 

Will we find a greater giver

If in man we put our trust?

No, for God gives man His pow’r, so

Praise the Lord our God we must!

 

CHORUS

The Moral of the Story, Part 1

The memories, the memories–how oft they pass us by

Without a moment’s notice and we’re left to wonder why

We found ourselves in situations fun and odd and strange,

Upon which wonderment we see the lesson on each page.

The moral of the story is–well, that is soon to come.

If you will play your cards just right, you may end up back home.

The moral of the story is–you are a sneaky one.

I can’t reveal the moral till this adventure you have done.

The story is as follows–don’t you laugh and don’t you cry,

‘Cause stories will be stories, as the sky is always sky.

The moral of the story is–now there you go again!

Eventually you’ll know the moral, but now we must begin:

Waking up one Monday morning, you find outside your door

A screaming orange antelope whose ankles look quite sore.

He says to you, “Can I come in? I’m in some serious pain!”